SAN FRANCISCO — A Vacaville man was sentenced to five years in federal prison for robbing two airline employees as they were loading trash bags full of marijuana into a vehicle, court records show.
Enrique Arenal, 33, pulled a gun on the employees and stole two bags containing marijuana, as well as personal items from both victims, in the June 2021 incident, according to federal prosecutors. As he “scouted” the area one day earlier, he had observed the same two victims loading bags into their vehicle and had “good reason” to suspect that the bags contained marijuana, authorities said in court filings.
Arenal pleaded guilty to robbery, signing an agreement that agreed with prosecutors’ contention that the robbery affected interstate commerce. A prosecution sentencing memorandum, asking U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley to give Arenal 66 months, makes no attempt to explain why two airline employees were leaving the San Francisco Airport on back-to-back days in possession of bags full of marijuana, and loading the bags into their personal cars. The memo does, however, the victims had “removed the bags of marijuana from a secure area they were able to access only because of their status as airline employees.”
Arenal was previously prosecuted in Georgia for being a felon in possession of ammunition, based on video of him and a friend shooting guns at a gun range there, court records show. In 2020, he was also charged with bringing a gun with him to the San Francisco airport and attempting to board a flight with it.
A sentencing memo by Arenal’s lawyers, employees of famed defense attorney Tony Serra’s firm, says that Arenal grew up in a San Francisco neighborhood “surrounded by poverty, gangs, violence, and drugs” and moved to Vacaville for a better life. It says he has sought out classes, vocational programs, and counseling in jail and prison and “put the rebelliousness, carelessness, and impulsivity of his 20s behind him.”
“Since his incarceration in 2022, Mr. Arenal has had ample time for introspection, identifying the psychological and historical sources of many of the problems he faces and the errors in judgment that marked his young adulthood,” the defense motion says. “He comes before the Court fully cognizant of the man he wants to be for himself, his family, and especially his four-year-old daughter.”